OK, so the latest Republican-manufactured crisis is finally over. But we're on warning that they could do it all over again in just three months. Which gets us to the question of why our government is so dysfunctional.
One big reason is that it wasn't designed to operate in such a polarized atmosphere. Other democracies like Great Britain have parliamentary governments. That means the majority political party in a one-house legislature picks the chief executive -- the prime minister. Both are from the same party. So they work together.
With the U.S. president elected separately from Congress, we often, as now, have divided government, with the chief executive from one party and a majority in one or both houses of Congress from the other.
Divided government works if party discipline is weak and there's considerable overlap of views among, say, Democratic conservatives and Republican moderates. Plus a spirit of comity and compromise. But none of that exists today -- especially among Republicans. Throw in the filibuster and you have today's recipe for obstruction and gridlock.
We also have a surplus of right-wing extremists. This country has always had a ready supply: the Nullifiers who followed John C. Calhoun, the Know Nothing Party in the 1840s, southern secessionists who started the Civil War, Liberty Leaguers fighting FDR, and McCarthyites and Birchers after World War II, to mention a few. What's different now is their greater numbers and power. Past right-wing extremists were fewer, usually not as influential, and easier to laugh off. No longer.
Not after Ronald Reagan convinced much of the country that government was the problem not the solution.
Nor after Newt Gingrich engineered the polarization that's so badly disunited the nation (in 1990 he urged Republicans to demonize Democrats with words like: traitors, cheat, steal, greed, disgrace, destructive, corrupt, selfish, intolerant. They've done a great job). And today Newt's successors like Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz encourage the flying of Confederate flags, and shutting down the government, then blaming it on Democrats. These far-outers now control one of our two major parties.
Read more: Why Our Politics Don't Work Any More | Sandy Goodman
One big reason is that it wasn't designed to operate in such a polarized atmosphere. Other democracies like Great Britain have parliamentary governments. That means the majority political party in a one-house legislature picks the chief executive -- the prime minister. Both are from the same party. So they work together.
With the U.S. president elected separately from Congress, we often, as now, have divided government, with the chief executive from one party and a majority in one or both houses of Congress from the other.
Divided government works if party discipline is weak and there's considerable overlap of views among, say, Democratic conservatives and Republican moderates. Plus a spirit of comity and compromise. But none of that exists today -- especially among Republicans. Throw in the filibuster and you have today's recipe for obstruction and gridlock.
We also have a surplus of right-wing extremists. This country has always had a ready supply: the Nullifiers who followed John C. Calhoun, the Know Nothing Party in the 1840s, southern secessionists who started the Civil War, Liberty Leaguers fighting FDR, and McCarthyites and Birchers after World War II, to mention a few. What's different now is their greater numbers and power. Past right-wing extremists were fewer, usually not as influential, and easier to laugh off. No longer.
Not after Ronald Reagan convinced much of the country that government was the problem not the solution.
Nor after Newt Gingrich engineered the polarization that's so badly disunited the nation (in 1990 he urged Republicans to demonize Democrats with words like: traitors, cheat, steal, greed, disgrace, destructive, corrupt, selfish, intolerant. They've done a great job). And today Newt's successors like Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz encourage the flying of Confederate flags, and shutting down the government, then blaming it on Democrats. These far-outers now control one of our two major parties.
Read more: Why Our Politics Don't Work Any More | Sandy Goodman
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